48 PILLARS 2018

February 24 - April 14, 2018

Exhibition Statement 48 Pillars was inspired by a chance encounter at Flax with a close-out sale of deep vertical panels, 48” x 12” x 1 5/8”. 24 local Bay Area artists will produce two pieces each on these identically sized panels that will exactly ring the gallery – 48 works total.

This is the second exhibition at Arc Gallery that is essentially a “structural constraint” show. The other exhibition is our iconic annual, end of summer exhibition, FourSquared. In both exhibitions, the artists are unconstrained in subject matter except to the extent that works need to be a series; but they are constrained in format. It should be visually stunning.

Michael Yochum, Curator

Catalog design: Michael Yochum Logo design: Priscilla Otani Arc Gallery © 2018

Participating Artists Carlos Cartagena

Carole Jeung

Holly Downing

Kevin Keul

Paule Dubois Dupuis

Joseph Kowalczyk

Georgianne Fastaia

Katja Leibenath

Rebecca Fox

Paul Morin

Laura Hapka

Stephen Namara

Patter Hellstrom

Hadley Radt

Ester Hernandez

Lucky Rapp

Howard Hersh

Fernando Reyes

Isis Hockenos

Ari Salomon

Vincent Jackson

Cindy Shih

Ivy Jacobsen

Ursula Xanthe Young

OPENING RECEPTION: Saturday, February 24th, 7-9pm ARTIST TALK & BRUNCH CLOSING RECEPTION: Saturday, April 14th, 12-3pm

Carlos Cartagena

Señuelo Me encontré desnudo y sereno en una estación en desuso. En silencio, decía adiós a un tren de vapor que su locomotora quemaba despedidas, carbón y niñez. La chimenea expulsaba al cielo pañuelos, mientras se alejaba hasta desaparecer. Está lloviznando, y me expongo como un espantapájaros a los recuerdos, sin brazos abiertos que causen miedo. Me unto yeso blanco como un señuelo y abro la boca a la llovizna para cachar adioses de seda.

Señuelo (Decoy) I found myself naked and serene, in a disused train station. In silence I said goodbye to a steam train whose locomotive was fueled by farewells, coal and childhood. The chimney expelled handkerchiefs into the sky as it disappeared into the distance.

It’s drizzling, and I expose myself to the memories like a scarecrow, without the open arms that might that cause fear. I spread white gesso over my body, like a decoy, and open my mouth to the drizzling rain to catch goodbyes of silk.

website: https://www.carloscartagena.net/ email: carloscartagena@live.com

SeĂąuelo mixed media on wood panel 12" x 48" $4500 diptych Carlos Cartagena

Holly Downing

These paintings of “Handira” or capes, traditionally worn by Moroccan Berber women, combine my love and respect for traditional indigenous cultures, and for chiaroscuro painting as practiced so masterfully in the Renaissance and after.

Painting drapery folds started as a technical exercise for me, but I quickly found myself projecting my own emotional states and social/political beliefs into my drapery studies. Plus, I found that drapery was often the most lively and psychologically insightful part of the paintings I viewed in museums. So began decades of my own drapery paintings.

Starting 10 years ago, travels in Peru, Nepal, SE Asia and Morocco, inspired me to express something of the indigenous cultures I was visiting and admiring through the painting of their handmade textiles. I’ve come to believe, as Prince Charles writes in his book Harmony, "If we continue to engineer the extinction of the last remaining indigenous traditional societies, we eliminate one of the last remaining sources of wisdom.” I would like, in my textile paintings, to celebrate and remind ourselves of the value of these cultures.

website: https://hollydowning.com/ email: hollydowning@comcast.net

Moroccan Handira I oil on canvas-covered wood panel 12" x 48" $4000 Holly Downing

Moroccan Handira II oil on canvas-covered wood panel 12" x 48" $4000 $7000 as diptych

Paule Dubois Dupuis

Life is an infinite variety of shapes and spaces, existing simultaneously as part of a whole or as solitary identities.

Memory fragments and sensory recollections color our daily observations allowing us, artists, to create our own perceived reality.

My work is influenced by what I see and feel. I sense a certain relief in expressing my emotions when my canvases are covered with lines, words, paint, and layers. Being a passionate person, the act of painting helps to mediate and allows me to sharpen my sensations to express visceral feelings that can't be put into words.

The result is a conversation in which lines and colors portray an incessant dialogue of competing impulses. The immediacy and freshness of the abstract style of my work as well as its complexity and boldness, has always appealed to me. No single paintings are identical because they involve my journey from one feeling to the next. They are internal debates that I attempt to externalize. Be free. Be bold. Be true. Those words are the essence of my experience.

website: http://duboisdupuis.com/ email: paulesf@gmail.com

Live until the moment becomes a memory mixed media on wood panel 12" x 48" $2000 Paule Dubois Dupuis

$3200 as diptych

Live every day like it's the last mixed media on wood panel 12" x 48" $2000

Georgianne Fastaia

Top of the world looking out is a diptych painted on wood panels in my abstract figurative style. The painting reminds me of the hopeful romanticized paintings of Maxfield Parrish, an early influence. It is meant to express hope for the future. My daughter is my stalwart critic. She exclaimed, "This makes me feel lifted up, free and peaceful."

She had witnessed the painting go through many mutations.

"This is the hard part of the process," I explained. "Being able to see through the muddy mess to the painting it will become."

I re-use old canvases, working into layers of paint, actively "damaging" the surface to give each painting a "history." The soap, which is used to clean brushes, was an unexpected discovery. It eats away layers of paint in what I call "LIFTS"----revealing hidden colors below.

The process is unpredictable and requires a fearless leap of faith. These ghosts of underlying imagery visually communicate abstract concepts of impermanence and fragility.

The choices I make between figuration and abstraction, between what is implied and what is revealed, serve to pull the viewer into the surface of the painting and leave them with questions. My paintings are the fields upon which my spirit shadow boxes; control versus letting go, fear versus trust, infused with human sadness yet â€œâ€Ś with the birds, they share a longer view."

website: https://artbygeorgiannefastaia.com email: gfastaia@gmail.com

Top of the world looking out oil, Rustoleum oil-based enamel, Min-Wax wood stain, cold wax medium on wood panel 12" x 48" $2400 diptych Georgianne Fastaia

Rebecca Fox

I continue to explore circles expanding my materials from working solely with steel to now incorporating bronze into my work.

By manipulating the circle in various configurations, I use minimal positive and negative space to play upon tension, balance and form. The circle also helps to achieve the contradiction of material and process vs. form by transforming metal to appear soft and delicate, invoking a sense of contemplation, continuousness and tranquility.

website: https://www.rebeccafox.com/ email: rebecca@rebeccafox.com

Crossroads 1 patinaed bronze on steel panel 12" x 48" $3500 Rebecca Fox

Crossroads 2 patinaed bronze on steel panel 12" x 48" $3500 $5600 as diptych

Laura Hapka

Unique in intention and complexity, the work of abstract artist Laura Hapka is a byproduct of her life experiences and creative experimentation. The sum of the two portrays her genuine appreciation for artistic process. Post graduate school, Hapka traveled the world and continued classes in various aesthetic styles and mediums. Through several years of exploration with acrylic paint and epoxy resin, and numerous iterations later, she developed and cultivated her unique method. Her practice and style has generated industry recognition and a fast-growing reputation.

Hapka lives and works in Oakland, California, and applies all three of her degrees in Environmental Design, Landscape Architecture, and Master of Business Administration to her artwork and occupation in Construction Project Management.

Hapka established a deep connection to the land early on as she grew up on a potato farm in Northern Minnesota. Her relationship to both nature and design is evident in every piece of art she creates.

View of Flyover Country was developed from personal imagery seen from air travel to and from Northern Minnesota to visit her family. Can you see the clouds, areal grid, and colors of nature?

website: http://laurahapka.com/ email: laurahapka@gmail.com

View of Flyover Country 1

View of Flyover Country 2 acrylic & resin on wood panel 12" x 48" $2400

acrylic & resin on wood panel 12" x 48" $2400 Laura Hapka

$4200 as diptych

Patter Hellstrom

Equality Upended is inspired by the use of mirroring as a means to create empathy and build relationships. Both efforts are highly valued by the artist. Hellstrom's new work relates to the Alan Alda Center for Communicating Science (Stony Brook University) focus on communication and empathy. Adding elements of inequality, the coloration is drawn from complimentary opposites. Precise graphite under drawings contrast with the flowing gestural inks at the surface.

These works track Hellstrom's year-long political activity in which she explored political voice in effort to build equality within a national vision. Recognizing that binary choices honored without depth of understanding reek havoc, a reality played out as our national dialog centered on lies and inequality. Presented in the age-old diptych format, Hellstrom contrasts tradition with new media. In this case the two panels she created a horizontal equal symbol turned on end vertically.

website: http://www.patterhellstrom.com/ email: PHellstrom@aol.com

Courtesy of ArtHaus http://www.arthaus-sf.com/ james@arthaus-sf.com

Equality Upended II mixed media on wood panel 12" x 48" $2200

Equality Upended I mixed media on wood panel 12" x 48" $2200 Patter Hellstrom

$3500 as diptych

Ester Hernandez

"Tell me a story, even if it's a lie." — Sandra Cisneros, author/writer Fused with my love of line/drawing, portraiture and the depiction of "bad girls,” Zoot Suit Woman. is inspired by an old family photo and stories of my "rebellious" aunt. Perhaps meant to be buried away and best forgotten, my aunt’s photo compelled me to honor her as I have found new meaning and relevance in it today. However, how to portray this in two long panels and why....

I have always been fascinated with images and stories about the Zootsuit/Pachuca's overly dramatic cool style and rebellion against the mainstream ideals of beauty and roles of women. Therefore, one panel depicts a close-up of her portrait to represent her life/ her existence in time and place. And although my elderly aunt always denied that Zootsuit women hid blades in their hair – that it was totally urban myth, the blades have now transcended into symbols of resistance. My second panel is influenced by my own roots and Native Mexican and Indigenous belief that hair holds memory.

Memory is fluid, but my aunt’s story weaves time, memory and space, a fearlessness of spirit, never ending, passed down to each generation that continues to resonate and inspire to this day.

website: http://www.esterhernandez.com/ email: esterhernandezart@gmail.com

photo credit: Lenore Chinn

Zoot Suit Woman varnished oil pastel on wood panel 12" x 48" $2800 diptych Ester Hernandez

Howard Hersh

Through decades of making art, geometry has always played a significant role. Lately though, the geometry has transformed into Structure itself. In my three dimensional "Skin Deep" series, ​which ​employ​s​a constructed wooden framework, or my 2D work, which uses structure as the predominant imagery; I have found a very fertile field to work in, both conceptually and physically.

Structure fascinates me, because it encompasses everything we know or can imagine. Whether it's sociological, architectural, biological, language, or astronomy, Structure is at its core.

website: http://howardhersh.com/ email: howard@howardhersh.com

La Frontera 1 acrylic on wood panel 12" x 48" $1800 Howard Hersh

La Frontera 2 acrylic on wood panel 12" x 48" $1800 $3000 as diptych

Isis Hockenos

Sweeping up sawdust on a windy day.

Hilarity in futility.

Female sense of urgency.

Female sense of responsibility.

Female sense of bondage.

Complacency.

Momentum.

Forward pressure.

Suspension.

Joy, ease, playfulness and efficiency.

Often, but a little at a time.

website: http://www.isishockenos.com/ email: ihockenos@gmail.com

photo credit: Jacob Abern

Often, but a little at a time I oil on wood panel 12" x 48" $1500 Isis Hockenos

Often, but a little at a time II oil on wood panel 12" x 48" $1500 $2700 as diptych

Vincent Jackson

Vincent Jackson is renowned for his large-scale figurative oil pastel drawings. His thick, defining lines break the human form into geometric shapes.

These forms are then filled with a heavy impasto of layered colors and arranged with a masterful sense of harmony. The resulting mask-­like works can be viewed as a contemporary renewal of traditional African and Oceanic folk art imagery. "My faces are my way of telling a story rather than writing," explains Vincent.

Jackson often experiments with other media including India ink, collage, and papier maché. His repertoire also includes intriguing abstract and animal compositions.

A prolific artist, Jackson has worked at Creativity Explored since 1984. He has brought tremendous energy to the studio, creating art five days a week for nearly 35 years. Perhaps no single artist at Creativity Explored converses more colorfully (or often) on his work and process. Unflagging in his desire and ability to command attention, Jackson speaks frankly and with confidence about his career as an artist. According to Vincent, “Subdued is not a word. . . .I have a degree in color. And if you don’t like it, you can just go back to school!”

website: https://www.creativityexplored.org/artists/vincent-jackson email: info@creativityexplored.org

African Man I colored pencil and paint on wood panel 12" x 48" $1100 Vincent Jackson

African Man II colored pencil and paint on wood panel 12" x 48" $1100

$2000 as diptych

Ivy Jacobsen

Nature is the inspiration with all of my artwork. Being in nature simply brings me peace and I strive to bring that feeling back into the studio when creating my paintings.

For the last 10 years I've been focused on creating the illusion of depth within my landscapes. It is my hope that the viewer is invited "into" the picture to explore and keep discovering new things within the layers. In my current series of work I paint botanical forms in between layers of 2 part epoxy resin and thin glazes of oil paint. With each semitransparent layer, the background recedes, creating the illusion of space, while revealing the history within the painting.

While I often times have a loose idea of the direction I'd like to go when starting a painting, it is very much through the process of working that the art informs and reveals itself. It is a balance of source materials coming directly from my observations of nature and intuitive mark making. The act of painting is meditative and I can often times channel the subconscious. By accessing these parts within myself, it is both healing and restoring to bring forth what is there.

website: http://www.ivyjacobsen.com/ email: ivyjacobsen@gmail.com

Red Sky Blooms 1 oil & resin on wood panel 12" x 48" $2300 Ivy Jacobsen

Red Sky Blooms 2 oil & resin on wood panel 12" x 48" $2300 $3900 as diptych

Carole Jeung

My paintings are explorations of places that exist inside and how one moves through them. I look for connections and transitions, where things intersect and react, where parts are hidden and revealed, where the blurs exist. I think about what is not immediately seen, what lies in the periphery of vision but nevertheless is always there. These places are discovered by layering, repetition and color shifts.

The two paintings “Dark” and “Light” developed concurrently; as one changed, so did the other. Along the way, the underlying intention became making one dark and one light.

website: https://www.carolejeung.com/ email: cajeung@gmail.com

courtesy of Don Soker Contemporary Art http://www.donsokergallery.com/ donsoker@yahoo.com

Dark oil on wood panel 12" x 48" $2500 Carole Jeung

Light oil on wood panel 12" x 48" $2500 $4000 as diptych

Kevin Keul

By creating layers referencing observed shifting formations of terrain over time, my work aims to draw attention to the ever evolving markings made to landscape through consumption and manufacturing.

Taking inspiration from shapes sourced through satellite images and aerial photographs, my work is created through an abstract approach with materials rooted in construction such as steel, iron and plywood.

Each shape is individually treated with paint, burnt with welding spots, etched into with raw lines, and at times coated with resin. Directly referencing recorded shapes from our current landscape, rusted metals and treated plywood pieces interplay with chalk paint in a more gestural and intuitive process merging color with form. Embedded into plywood, stark white panels securely hold the various formations within my newly created abstract landscapes. These select industrial materials allude to the transformation of raw material into new manufactured landscapes.

Observing these “man� made shapes intentionally from a distance through these digital tools allows me to explore not only the distance we may relate to the landscape as a society immersed in technology, but also questions the separation we may have to the actual dirt beneath our feet.

From fracking and salt ponds, rectangular formations in farm fields, circular patterns resulting in irrigation fields, my work observes the new constructions of our landscape.

website: http://kevinkeul.com/ email: kkeul@pacbell.net

Crossing Paths 1 Crossing Paths 2 wood, spray paint, acrylic, ink, epoxy coating wood, spray paint, acrylic, ink, epoxy coating on wood panel on wood panel 12" x 48" 12" x 48" $1800 $1800 $2800 as diptych

Kevin Keul

Joseph Kowalczyk

The work of Joseph Kowalczyk (Ko-väl-chick) often explores representations of protection, strength, integrity, and honor, as it questions the legitimacy of such virtues. His figures possess dualities that spring from the darker side of the subconscious, often referred to as the “human shadow.” Joseph’s work attempts to highlight these human characteristics, and puts them into the physical world; to give them a face and a set of eyes, so we can confront them and understand them better.

The 48 Pillars format presented a challenge for Joseph as this is his first attempt in sculpting bah-relief. When selecting the subject, Joseph knew he needed something simple yet empowered; something which displays a sense of security in a moment of uncertainty. Joseph’s “pillars” depict a warrior figure with her back towards the viewer. In one hand she firmly grips her spear, while the other hand breaks from rest. The warrior recedes in the background and is completely engulfed by the surrounding forest. She stands steadily and is ready; her head turns to confront an impending force.

Joseph is an award winning sculptor and painter that has been creating art in the California Bay Area since receiving his BFA in ceramics from California College of the Arts in 2006. Along with his own studio work, Joseph teaches ceramics at Creative Growth Art Center, fixes kilns throughout the San Francisco Bay Area, and co-manages a community of artist studios within the Oakland Art Murmur district. Joseph has work featured in public and private collections internationally, and has exhibited in Chicago, Los Angeles, Portland, Mexico City, and Taiwan as well as San Francisco.

website: https://joko.us/ email: studiojoko@gmail.com

Darker Days than Nights hand painted glazed stoneware on wood panel 12" x 48" $4000 diptych Joseph Kowalczyk

Katja Leibenath

My paintings are figurative abstractions of either the human form or a specific place. The format of this show lends itself to one of my favorite subjects, the standing human figure. I work from my own source material: photographs, sketches and memory.

I translate this material into oil paintings over the course of many months in my studio. During the painting process the original object becomes obscured and less important, allowing something new and separate to emerge. The final painting is a record of my relationship to the process of painting itself, and marks the moment where subject becomes object and is ready for connection with the viewer.

Originally from Germany with a background in architecture and art, I have been painting in San Francisco since 2006. My work is part of public and private collections internationally and has been exhibited in New York, Los Angeles, Miami, and Atlanta, in addition to San Francisco.

website: http://katjaleibenath.com/ email: Katja@KatjaLeibenath.com

Standing Figure # 32 oil on wood panel 12" x 48" $2200 Katja Leibenath

Standing Figure # 34 oil on wood panel 12" x 48" $2200 $3700 as diptych

Paul Morin

A “Contemporary Realist,” Paul combines a traditional technique with a modern sensibility – images that confront the viewer and with a sense of scale that is very individual. By capturing the unique look and expression of each sitter, Paul delves into the personality of his subjects much like a candid snapshot reveals the moment-specific projection of a person's inner thoughts. His commissioned portraits bring an immediacy to his subjects revealing an inner life that truly makes the sitter “come alive!”

You can never be too rich or too thin!

When confronted with a 12 x 48 inch panel, a figurative artist must make a choice. I chose to visually "squeeze" the figure into the framework. I then remembered Wallace Simpson's famous quote which provides the title to this series. Yes, it's funny -- but it's so much more...

You can never be too rich or too thin!

Is it a directive? A bitter realization? An accusation? Or is it propaganda? You can never be too rich or too thin -- but that's not the end of it is it? As we are all too aware, the propaganda of journalism, advertisement, politics, social media and daily interactions tells us, "You can never be too rich or too thin...or too young...or too fit...or too white...or too successful...or too heterosexual...or too christian...or too male!"

The "Superman" of the 20th century has been re-cast for the 21st -- the torch has been passed!

website: http://studiomorin.com/ email: paul@studiomorin.com

courtesy of ArtHaus http://www.arthaus-sf.com/ james@arthaus-sf.com

You Can Never Be Too Rich or Too Thin - he oil on wood panel 12" x 48" $2200 Paul Morin

You Can Never Be Too Rich or Too Thin - she oil on wood panel 12" x 48" $2200

$4000 as diptych

Stephen Namara

I will confess that when it comes to writing about my work for an exhibition, I seldom get it right. I usually start off with wanting to say something profound but end up with something where (I think) all subtlety and reflection is lost. Because I am too close to the painting, I am unable to step back and judge it for what it is. Be that as it may, a painting, even a realist painting, is an invention. It is synthetic. The most important thing to me is the feeling it generates. It is my aspiration to create work that might linger on afterwards as an enigmatic moment for the viewer.

Tellingly from the start, the two companion panels seemed to set the agenda and the tenor of what was going to happen. Within these limits, I had to impose order to find a composition that would sustain the focus I required. I wanted there to be a dialogue of difficulty between the image and its support. Not only a dialogue between the two panels, but also in the way they connect to the viewer, a certain indeterminacy in the way they register.

The marks on the panels were completely spontaneous and intuitive. Stop and pause, fact and fiction, life and art, here and there, inner and outer: BRO-KEN. The awkward truth about how our social-media habits are affecting our lives; and of course, the ubiquitous use of language and its impact upon our lives, the tensions created when language is untethered from its everyday usage and given a new context.

I should add that for me faces are windows to our selves. They give hints of what lies beneath, like ripples on the water. Calm, anger, doubt, determination are all conveyed by subtle movements of the face, and our minds are highly attuned to interpret these subtleties. Behind the face is a complex mix of feelings, intelligence, memories, potential regret, hope, etc. Faces are often beautiful, and a universal image of humanity that signify the complexity of the life behind them.

website: https://www.stephennamara.com/ email: stephen@stephennamara.com

The Promise - Pause oil on wood panel 12" x 48"

The Promise - Play oil on wood panel 12" x 48"

$3700

Stephen Namara

$3700

$6200 as diptych

Hadley Radt

My paintings explore the connection between systems in our environment and how they relate to my own impulse to construct order. The structures I develop become a woven pattern of overlapping and intertwining shapes and lines. The marks become a visual network of intricate systems and patterns that I build and deconstruct by establishing a logic and method.

Even as I attempt to formulate routines of order in my pieces, the patterns start to become tangled, creating environments of organized chaos. Mistakes occur within my mark making, and my hand can be seen. I intentionally and unintentionally interrupt the systems I build, causing unexpected glitches that break the pattern. The errors make the work less mechanical and, instead, adds a human quality.

I am exploring terrains of connections; physical, psychological, emotional, neurological. I am interested in the depiction of these connections and tracking layers of information. I am curious how the viewer is able to move through the accumulation of marks, finding their own pathways to navigate.

I am inspired by examples of repetition and geometry in both the natural and built environment.

Including; maps, architecture, fractals, particle formations, and neural networks. Our environment is full of repetition and pattern, I am intrigued by all of these different kinds of order and they influence the structures I create in my work.

website: http://hadleyradt.com/ email: hadleyradt@gmail.com

courtesy of K. Imperial Fine Art http://kimperialfineart.com/ monica@kimperialfineart.com

External Mapping acrylic, ink & pen on wood panel 12" x 48" $2150 Hadley Radt

Internal Mapping acrylic, ink & pen on wood panel 12" x 48" $2150 $3500 as diptych

Lucky Rapp

doe, a deer and my favorite things articulate through colors and textures a favorite childhood performance from the American musical, The Sound of Music, in which Julie Andrews, cast as Nanny, makes clothing for the children out of curtains.

website: http://luckyrapp.com/ email: luckyrapp@gmail.com

doe, a deer my favorite things gesso, paint, plaster, nails, archival ink, resin gesso, paint, plaster, nails, archival ink, resin on wood panel on wood panel 12" x 48" 12" x 48" $3400 $3400 $5400 as diptych

Lucky Rapp

Fernando Reyes

Throughout the years I’ve produced a large and diverse portfolio of figurative artwork. In the last three years, I’ve ventured into a new direction of abstract paper cutouts.

These new cutouts are made with my own handprinted paper that is cut and arranged into patterns. As a printmaker, I’ve created mono prints for many years but the idea of cutting and collaging them rose in late 2014 after seeing a retrospective of Matisse cut-outs at the MOMA in New York. A revelation occurred within me to venture into a new direction taking me through a creative journey that has expanded my artistic repertoire. My new work is an abstracted reflection of a myriad of images that have captured my imagination for years from art movements like mid-century modern art; from individual artists like Alexander Calder, Ellsworth Kelly; from visual childhood memories growing up during the 60’s of furniture, buildings, fashion trends, movies and television. My work is meant to arouse the senses, to conjure emotional states, to enliven curiosity, and to instigate the telling of a story.

website: http://www.freyesart.com/ email: freyesart@mac.com

Drift 1 handprinted paper cutouts & oil on wood panel 12" x 48" $2500 Fernando Reyes

Drift 2 handprinted paper cutouts & oil on wood panel 12" x 48" $2500

$4250 as diptych

Ari Salomon

I am interested in the way photographs abstract space and time; how they can capture cycles of construction and deconstruction, and evidence of people living or just passing through. Together, the images present questions about cultural authenticity and what makes one location unique from any other.

This series focuses on Japanese urban industrial architecture. The pictures are composed of individual photographs, shot in sequence, and then stitched together. These present a vertical view that includes ground and sky together.

I love the poetic relationship presented by making art about the grand qualities of mundane buildings — especially in a large-scale, panoramic format. Layers of history are brought to life in this wide angle of view as the eye compares the relationship of buildings and the spaces between them. The viewer discovers unexpected juxtapositions and whimsical details.

website: https://arisalomon.com/ email: ari@arisalomon.com

Fukuoka, Canal City pigment print mounted on wood panel 12" x 48" $1000 Ari Salomon

Tokyo, Cocoon Tower pigment print mounted on wood panel 12" x 48" $1000 $1600 as diptych

Cindy Shih

Path to Citizenship I & II are a part of the Bee Memory Series, a series depicting the worker bee as an allegory to the classic immigrant story: a migration to opportunity, whose humble existence and hard work produces enormous wealth and value for society, but whose existence is undervalued and eventually discarded.

Cindy Shih often uses nature as metaphor, using a fresco-inspired technique and brushwork reminiscent of Chinese calligraphy and landscape painting.

Her early interest in Philosophy and training in Chinese calligraphy led her to exploring the language and styles of traditional Chinese literati painting.

Each panel starts with many thin, burnished layers of Venetian plaster, constructing a textured, abstracted terrain that allows for the plaster to ultimately guide the direction of the narrative.

Graphite powder is then mixed in, settling into the crevices and cracks as the imagery is formed.

In the process, both traditions of western-style fresco and Chinese landscape painting work harmoniously.

Seeking inspiration in the resilience of nature, this series contemplates the simplicity of line, texture, and brushwork that evokes the raw energy, passion, and power of cyclones and whirlpools forces of nature that draws immigrants in, while simultaneously pushing them outward. In evoking these forces, these pieces are a quiet, passionate reflection of our own turbulent discussions of immigration today.

website: http://www.cindyshihart.com/ email: cindy.h.shih@gmail.com

Path to Citizenship I graphite on Venetian plaster on wood panel 12" x 48" $1900 Cindy Shih

Path to Citizenship II graphite on Venetian plaster on wood panel 12" x 48" $1900

$3200 as diptych

Ursula Xanthe Young

Over the past twenty years illustrator, painter, muralist and designer Ursula Xanthe Young has become known for her unique flowery urban fairytale illustrations. Graduate of Parsons School of Design (Illustration, BFA, New York 1996) Ursula exhibits frequently in the San Francisco Bay Area and has sold paintings around the world. She exhibits most frequently with Luna Rienne Gallery in San Francisco.

Ursula finds inspiration in the organic yet urban landscape of San Francisco and the magical surroundings of Northern California. She is also highly influenced by her travels to the far-flung reaches of the globe and the variety of colorful characters and environments that she encounters - both real and imagined - along the way. Ursula's recent projects include a 18' commissioned painting for The Grand Hyatt in San Francisco as a part of a new art collection, a 140’ collaborative mural in Sacramento and a 75' mural on Market street in downtown San Francisco. Other clients include: NorthFace, SF Weekly, Google, Om Records and SF Bay Guardian. Ursula is also part of Few & Far: an international all-female collective of mural-painters and has painted large collaborative wall murals around the U.S and beyond.

Originating from the green rural dales of Northern England, Ursula has spent much of her time since then traveling and has studied art in New York City, Florence, Vermont, Oslo, and London.

After ten years making her mark in the Lower Haight neighborhood of San Francisco, she now lives in a creative enclave in the Sierra Nevada foothills of Northern California - this time to a remote spot in the forest - where she’s busy finding a whole host of new inspirations. She lives with her husband, daughter and two cats near Grass Valley, California.

website: http://ursulayoung.com/ email: info@ursulayoung.com

courtesy of Luna Rienne Gallery http://www.lunarienne.com/ info@lunarienne.com

Eye of the Storm acrylic on wood panel 12" x 48" $1800 Ursula Xanthe Young

Month of Maybes acrylic on wood panel 12" x 48" $1800 $3400 as diptych

http://arc-sf.com http://arcfinearts-sf.com 1246 Folsom St. San Francisco, CA

arcgallerysf@gmail.com 415-298-7969